“This is Summer,” I say, her name as sweet as honey on my tongue.
Miss Wiley is Monica Wiley, my accountant and assistant, and the closest thing I have to a mother and a stand-in grandmother to Hailey. I begged her and paid her a boat load of cash to come with us this summer as a ‘counselor’, but really I just needed a friendly face and someone I trusted besides Ted to help me with Hailey.
“Thummer…” Hailey squints and nods. “I wike your name.”
“Thanks,” Summer smiles on a soft laugh. “I like yours too.”
“She’s going to be helping you. You remember we talked about what a speech therapist is?”
“I wemember.” Hailey nods, scratching at her cheek, leaving another paint smudge behind, and my heart sings whenever I see her smile. “She’s nice. I wike her.”
With that, she’s done with me and goes back to her painting. I turn, Summer’s eyes narrow and I already know what she is thinking.
“My daughter,” I exhale, my heart breaking at the flicker of shock and pain in her warm brown eyes, feeling the unusual need to explain. “I didn’t really know her mom. Tequila was involved,” I say, and her face softens in understanding. “I’m not proud of how it happened, but I’m proud to be her father. She’s changed everything for me.”
Summer rolls her lips, her eyes drifting to the bank of windows across the room where there are other staff outside, standing in groups, doing the social things I never seem to understand.
My heart is racing as her silence ends with, “No chance of you and her mom ever…?”
I shake my head. “No. Was never like that and she passed away. It’s just me and Hailey.”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry. I—” Horror and embarrassment send a shadow across her soft features.
“It’s okay. I’ve never been great with people, but with Hailey we’re muddling through this whole parenting thing together. She’s probably raising me more than I’m raising her. I want her to have this.” I wave my arm in an arc, but Summer blinks, looking unsure. “Nature. Adventure. She spent her first years in Chicago. The city never worked for me.”
Some part of me wants to tell her more, about the jagged and jaded parts. She’s too soft. Too pure. I don’t want her to carry around the broken parts of me. Or the reasons why I’m that way.
“You don’t like the city,” she says, and it’s not a question, so I don’t answer. “I grew up in New York until I was seven, then we moved to Detroit. That’s about as city as you get. I still go back to New York whenever I can. I love it there.” I see in the way her eyebrows rise, the way her lips stay open. I’m missing some cue here, but whatever it is, I’m lost. As much as my heart and mydick want to spend time with Summer, what I want will always be second to what Hailey needs.
“You should get to know her,” I say, wondering if such a perfect, sweet girl like her could ever understand the monsters inside of me and why they came to live there. “See you later.”
***
They don’t know I’m watching them.
The view from the camera in the living room of our cabin shows me the back of my daughter’s head, her blonde hair curling around her ears as she sits with Summer on the floor next to the wide back window, repeating lines of a silly made-up rhyme that has her giggling as much as talking.
The entire camp has cameras and audio equipment set up. The Adventure Network installed it all, wanting to get a realistic flavor of my life.
Side benefit I didn’t expect is I get to be a fucking voyeur. I’m the watcher instead of the watched, for once.
From my seat behind the monitors in the office in the main hall, I take it all in. Summer is a fucking natural with Hailey, making the whole thing into a game, and if I didn’t want to admit it tomyself before, I’m beginning to understand what other people mean when they talk about how it feels to fall in love.
The falling part is spot on. Like falling down a sheer mountainside with no fucking helmet.
Still, all I can keep thinking is, she’s perfect.
She’s sweet and sassy and smart. With perfect hair. Perfect tits. Perfect ass. And don’t get me started on those lips.
Inside my head, there are not just visions of the filthy, monstrous things I want to do with her and to her.
But other things. Things I was sure would never mean anything to me.
Like waking up next to someone every morning. Making sure she eats and drinks and goes to the doctor and never uses her phone while she’s driving.
But that’s not the most shocking thing going on inside my head.
I can’t shake the feeling I want to give Hailey a sibling. Or ten. With this girl who is rocking my boat until I feel like I’m going to puke over the edge.